Problems with PCI slot on Epox 9NPA+ Ultra

MarcLister · 24 Jan 2006 at 17:24

IRQ conflicts with Epox 9NPA+ Ultra, can you help?

I've just bought some new components to make a 3700SD, Epox 9NPA+ Ultra, 2Gb Corsair, ATI X1800XT 512Mb and Hiper 580W system with a 74Gb Raptor and a 250Gb SATAII Western Digital storage drive. The system is up and running fine but I can't seem to have anything in the last PCI slot running. I initially had my Creative Audigy sound card in the bottom PCI slot. I installed the drivers and I remember seeing it in the Sounds and Audio Devices menu but later when I reset the computer it wasn't there and I had to use the onboard sound. I thought maybe the sound card had gone dodgy or something but since the onboard sound was OK I didn't panic too much.

Then this afternoon I plugged a Nebula DigiTV PCI card in and guess what? It isn't showing up in Windows at all. Can anyone think of any reason why this is happening? Is it the board? Do I need to RMA it?

I did attempt to flash my BIOS from Windows but when restarting the PC wasn't happy with the new BIOS and reverted to the original BIOS. Would this have caused a problem?

easyrider · 24 Jan 2006 at 17:52

I would not flash the bios from windows.

I would download the bootable cd from epox site and flash it from the cd.
Make sure you have the latest bios and install the card again.

n3x · 24 Jan 2006 at 18:28

I have a similar problem, it looks like the epox isnt sending enough power to my pci slots, i originally put a Nova-t tv card in the bottom slot and after then the pc wouldnt power up at all unless i switched all power off and on again, then i had to press restart for it to start booting!

I've since had to move it to the first slot, the pc still needs to be completely powered down and back on again but i no longer need to press the reset button for it to boot!

I've asked many different people many different times and no1 seems to know what the problem really is. Someone said it sounded like there wasnt sufficent power on the standby rails... what psu are u using?

oh and i flashed the bios in windows using the epox tool and it worked a treat!

MarcLister · 24 Jan 2006 at 18:32

A Hiper 580W modular PSU.

MarcLister · 24 Jan 2006 at 19:01

I've just tried burning the latest iso from the Epox site using CDBurnerXP. I can't get the PC to boot from the CD though. The BIOS is set to look to CD before the HD so that is OK. I've never been able to burn an ISO with CDBurnerXP and get the resulting CD to boot. Anyone know what settings I need to use?

I just tried the Epox Magic BIOS again and it tells me that the current BIOS is the latest one, so it must be working fine. Is it me or does the Epox Magic Bios only allow you to download a bios file and flash, not get one from your hard disk and flash using that?

n3x · 25 Jan 2006 at 08:24

could be a problem with the hiper perhaps? i havnt got another psu to test out though

MarcLister · 25 Jan 2006 at 09:56

n3x said:
could be a problem with the hiper perhaps? i havnt got another psu to test out though

Could be. I'll email Epox and see if I can get an answer from them.

split · 25 Jan 2006 at 11:30

MarcLister said:
Could be. I'll email Epox and see if I can get an answer from them.

Why don't you stick it on the EPOX forum.

I would imagine the chances of someone using a Hiper are higher, or maybe someone has an answer.

Thing is, you may just be told to try something like this.
You can actually do the measuring with a DMM with the PC powered on in a spare molex plug which is a good test for any PSU.

No idea on how to make the CD with that software, so maybe try a floppy or a bootable CD this way.

MarcLister · 25 Jan 2006 at 22:55

split - I posted on the Epox forums earlier. I've gotten a reply from someone suggesting it could be an IRQ error. I found something on the Epox forum earlier that agrees with that so I put my TV card in the PCI slot above. I thought I couldn't because of the heatsink size and it blasting the hot air downwards into the case. Well a quick check reveals that the reason the gfx card takes up two slots is because the heatsink is designed to vent the air out of the case so it is expelled from the case directly from the graphics card and not via the case inside.

I moved the card and the Nebula DigiTV works beautifully. I've been told that I need some help from some others but I am hopeful that it can be solved and I can run the gfx card, tv card and sound can together without any IRQ conflicts.

MarcLister · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:21

I've had some emails from Epox support and I've been told that I can't use a TV or sound card in the last PCI slot because of IRQ conflicts. I wasn't told what conflicts with what but I presume it is the graphics card.

I asked if I could manually change/set the IRQs to get around the problem and got a bit of a pathetic reply to that. I've read the manual and there is a menu in the bios for manually setting IRQs. Does anyone know if I could change the IRQs?

I really don't want to not be able to have both my TV card and sound card together. I wanted to build a new PC and have everything within the case so no external TV or sound cards. If anyone has any experience with IRQs and manually setting them or even if they think it would be successful then please let me know.

n3x · 26 Jan 2006 at 12:39

no idea im afraid... and as far as IRQ's go i dont see how an IRQ conflict would stop my powering up my pc?

That might be your problem though, have you checked for conflicts in device manager?

MarcLister · 26 Jan 2006 at 13:21

It isn't an IRQ conflict as such. I've been told that I can't use the bottom PCI slot of my board. I have access to two, the third being blocked by my graphics card. I have my TV card in the middle PCI slot. When I tried my TV card and sound card, seperately, in the bottom PCI slot the PC would power up but whatever is in the bottom PCI slot wouldn't be recognised.

I didn't think it would be IRQ problems when the sound card was in so I could put in back in and see if I can find any IRQ conflicts.

Bookime Wood · 26 Jan 2006 at 13:46

Epox 9npa
x800gto2
slot2 leadtek expert tv card
slot3 audigy 2 zs

No problems at all, you will find the graphics and slot 3 share irq18 iirc

-------------------
now running
epox 9npa
7800gt
slot2 leadtek expert
slot3 audigy 2 zs

Some strange goings on start to happen, the tv card looses sound, sound from games/music becomes very high pitched/tinny.

Un-install leadtek, move audigy to slot 2 now on irq17, still sound is tinny and high pitched. The only thing that has changed prior to everything running ok was the installation of the 7800gt, I used dc and cleaned them out, going to try a clean install of the audigy/drivers see if it cures.

It is also worth remembering that you should try and keep a tv card in slot 1 if possible. I also thought irq conflicts were a thing of the past

MarcLister · 26 Jan 2006 at 15:29

I've already said I can't use the first PCI slot because the heatsink from the graphics card take up two slots. Thus I only have access to the second and third PCI slots.

If I put the sound card in the third PCI slot and ran Windows could I reassign the IRQs there? Or in the bios?

n3x · 27 Jan 2006 at 11:34

u should be able to manually set irq's in the bios somewhere.

MarcLister · 27 Jan 2006 at 11:37

n3x said:
u should be able to manually set irq's in the bios somewhere.

Yep I found the PCI configuration menu. The only problem is I don't know which IRQ belongs to which component and if any aren't being used. Can I record that from the Devices menu in Windows?

Leporello · 31 Jan 2006 at 19:55

I have the Nebula DigiTV card fitted to my Epox 9NPA+Ultra mobo and it runs just fine. My graphics card is a BFG 7800GT OC and my memory 2Gb Patriot low latency. I've never experienced any problems at all with the Nebula. It does seem to be a bit of a CPU hog but that's never presented me with any problems other than a 5c rise in CPU temperature.

I doubt very much that your problem is a compatibility issue with the Epox board. Perhaps the colour of you Hiper PSU is clashing with some other garish component?

MarcLister · 31 Jan 2006 at 19:59

Leporello said:
I have the Nebula DigiTV card fitted to my Epox 9NPA+Ultra mobo and it runs just fine. My graphics card is a BFG 7800GT OC and my memory 2Gb Patriot low latency. I've never experienced any problems at all with the Nebula. It does seem to be a bit of a CPU hog but that's never presented me with any problems other than a 5c rise in CPU temperature.

I doubt very much that your problem is a compatibility issue with the Epox board. Perhaps the colour of you Hiper PSU is clashing with some other garish component?

The problem is to do with the motherboard. I can't put anything in the bottom PCI slot because the IRQ for that slot is shared with the graphics card slot. This has been confirmed by Epox themselves. Since my graphics card takes up two slots, I can only use the bottom two PCI slots and since I can't use the bottom one I have to use the other unblocked one. This means I have a choice between a TV card or a soundcard. Since my board has onboard sound I've got my Nebula card in.

And as for my power supply, it is the black version of the Hiper 580W. My Akasa Eclipse 62 is also black so now clashing colours anywhere.

MarcLister · 31 Jul 2006 at 15:56

OK. It's been a few months since I've worked on this problem. I'm at home and I'd like to see if I can fix this.

Can anyone explain dynamic IRQs to me? Would I be able to get the IRQs reset if I reinstalled Windows? As I've said before it isn't essential to run the TV and sound card since my mobo has onboard sound. It'd just be nice is all.

I've read that IRQs get assigned when Windows is installed so would it make sense to put the sound card in and then reinstall Windows? Epox told me that the graphics card and the bottom PCI slot share an IRQ. Is this set on the hardware like this or can it be altered in the BIOS or by installing Windows?

I've also disabled some ports in Windows which I've seen could save on some IRQs and thus give me some spare IRQs to play with. Is this true or have I been reading hogwash?

I've also disabled the ports (COM ports etc) that I don't use in the BIOS as well. There is something else I can disable but I'm not sure which one. It is something like Parallel IDE or something. There are two so I believe I could disable one and keep the other one. I suppose I could just disable one of them, restart the PC and see if my 2nd HDD or my optical drives are still detected or not.

So if anyone has any knowledge on IRQs or Windows installs could they let me know if I have some chance of fixing it or am I chasing ghosts?

MarcLister · 4 Aug 2006 at 16:59

Well I dared and I won. I decided to disable as many ports and on-board devices that are redundant. I did this in the hope of recouping as many IRQs as possible so that when I tried my soundcard again it would be found and would not conflict with the graphics card.

My Soundblaster is running beautifully at the moment. This should help me out in games where the CPU has a little less to do. I'm thinking of getting the Creative X-Fi card with the front bay interface so I can have my headphones plugged in at the front instead of using an extension cable from the back.

Going to run nLite in a while, integrate drivers and hotfixes, tweak the hell out of XP and install an nLited XP install and see what it is like.